The Alchemist's Daughter

by KatharineMcMahon (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2006

  $3.47

  A classic, page-turning story of secrets and science, passion and betrayal, innocence and experience. Dark secrets haunt the manor house at Selden in Buckinghamshire, where Emilie Selden, motherless, fiercely intelligent and beautiful, has been raised in near isolation by her father. John Selden, student of Isaac Newton, is conducting a secret experiment. He aims to turn Emilie into a brilliant natural philosopher and alchemist and fills her with knowledge while recording every step she takes. In the spring of 1725, when Emilie is eighteen, father and daughter begin their most daring adventure - an attempt to breathe life into dead matter. But they are interrupted by the arrival of two strangers. During the course of a sultry August, Emilie is caught up in the passion of first love and, listening for the first time to her heart rather than her head, she makes her choice - with consequences that are far-reaching and tumultuous.

• Used

  Paperback
  2006

  $4.62

  Set in the early 1700's this is the story of Emilie - the alchemist's daughter of the title - who has been raised by her father in almost total isolation from the world. He has trained her in science and alchemy and is devoted to her, although he's always been a rather gruff and undemonstrative father. Since the day of her birth he has recorded her behaviour (her failures and triumphs) in his 'Emilie notebooks', and he believes that he has moulded her into a brilliant and super-rational scientist to carry on his legacy. However, he neglected to consider that she might be interested in more than just science and alchemy, and when a dashing young man pays a call to the house - ostensibly to ask for Emilie's father's scientific advice - Emilie's hormones take over, and it's not long before she is pregnant, married, and disowned by her heartbroken father. And that's when her adventure really begins. Like a Hardy or a Jane Austen heroine, Emilie is destined to makes a bad choice and painfully come to realise her mistake only after she loses nearly everything. There's also a dark secret in her past, a dramatic explosion, and a Mr Knightly / Gabriel Oak figure to help her put things right '

• Used

  Hardcover
  2006

  $3.47

  Dark secrets haunt the manor house at Selden in Buckinghamshire, where Emilie Selden, motherless, fiercely intelligent and more beautiful than she realises, has been raised in near isolation by her father. John Selden, student of Isaac Newton, is conducting a bold and secret experiment. He aims to turn Emilie into a brilliant natural philosopher and alchemist. Secluded in his ancient manor house, with only their two servants for company, he fills her with knowledge and records every step she takes. In the spring of 1725, when Emilie is eighteen, father and daughter begin their most daring alchemical adventure of all - an attempt to breathe life into dead matter. But their work is interrupted by the arrival of two strangers, one a researcher into the life of plants, the other a dazzling young merchant. During the course of a sultry August, whilst her father is away, Emilie is caught up in the passion of first love and, listening for the first time to her heart rather than her head, she makes her choice...with consequences that are far-reaching and tumultuous.